Lakeland Electric Negotiates Solar Power Rate

Lakeland Electric recently was able to renegotiate a deal with a solar company for a lower rate for the next 20 years, although that rate still is nearly double the price for coal and natural gas.

By JOHN CHAMBLISSTHE LEDGER

LAKELAND | Lakeland Electric recently was able to renegotiate a deal with a solar company for a lower rate for the next 20 years, although that rate still is nearly double the price for coal and natural gas.City commissioners voted 6-0 last month to accept a decreased rate with Maryland-based SunEdison of 13.3 cents per kilowatt hour from 14.9 cents. The rate for coal and natural gas is currently 7 cents per kilowatt hour.Initially, the lower rate for solar was 13.5 cents a kilowatt hour, but at a Utility Committee meeting Aug. 5, Commissioner Justin Troller urged utility officials to renegotiate a better deal.City officials then met with representatives from SunEdison to obtain the deal for 13.3 cents.Troller, who was absent from the vote about the negotiated reduction on Aug. 19, sent a letter to commissioners to push for a 13-cent deal."Many companies do not want to commit to this project for two-plus decades," Troller wrote. "This should be a sign for us as a utility and a committee to take a step back and ask should we be signing on to a 20-25 year contract."With the locked-in rate, Troller wrote that residents will pay higher prices when solar prices likely will decrease in 20 years.Jeff Curry, alternative energy coordinator for Lakeland Electric, said prices for other sources of energy, such as coal and natural gas, likely will increase in the coming years. He expects solar prices to compete with other forms of energy in the coming years.Curry said that polls of Lakeland Electric customers show support for solar power despite the high price.Unlike 29 other states, Florida has no requirements for the utility to have renewable energy. But Curry said there have been several proposed bills to enact a state policy that would require utilities to make 10 percent of their energy renewable.In addition, Curry said, a planned increase in pollution controls for coal plants by the federal government would cause rates to increase, making prices for solar more appealing.He described the move by SunEdison to lower the rate as a "pretty positive thing for them to do."More solar farms will start popping up across the city in the next several years as the utility pushes to meet its plan for an addi­- tional 18 megawatts of solar power in the area — about 2 percent of the city's total energy output.The utility is considering constructing a 5- to 6-megawatt solar farm next year behind the Glendale wastewater treatment plant in South Lakeland.A nearly 6-megawatt project, the biggest for Lakeland Electric, is located at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport. The utility also has solar panels on top of The Lakeland Center. Those panels cover roughly an acre and produce one-quarter of a megawatt.Once the goal of 24 megawatts has been met, Lakeland Electric would be the biggest municipal provider of solar renewable energy in the state. Plans for a solar increase in Lakeland will mirror a worldwide surge in solar power.The solar industry is on track to nearly double its solar capacity worldwide in the next 2˝ years by installing another 100 gigawatts by 2015, according to The Atlantic magazine. A gigawatt is a unit of power equal to 1 billion watts.The magazine said that the price of solar panels has dropped, but according to the Department of Energy, the cost of mounting the panels and other "non-hardware" costs haven't fallen as quickly.

[ John Chambliss can be reached at john.chambliss@theledger.com or 863-802-7588. ]